


Leave Me a Message.

by Winnie_Chester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Stanford Era, Unrequited Wincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:28:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winnie_Chester/pseuds/Winnie_Chester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If I'd have called, would you have picked up?” -- Dean Winchester, Pilot</p><p>This is how Dean knows Sam wouldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave Me a Message.

This was just another thing they’d never talked about. 

***  
Dean wasn't dying-- he knew that, he did. He'd wake up tomorrow, maybe tomorrow night, and it would be rough going for a while and then he'd be fine. 

Sure, it was a sort of near thing. He knew that too. He’d been bleeding pretty badly, and the stitches he'd put in himself to make absolute sure his insides stayed _in_ hadn't been particularly well executed, or pretty.

Still, by all accounts he was doing okay. He'd gotten himself out, into the car—he could worry about the blood on the seat later--into the motel room, and put mostly back together. 

And now Dean was going to be fine. He didn't need anyone to watch his back. 

It had all been Dean’s fault, really. The truth of the matter was, Dean was discovering a remarkable knack for getting himself both into and out of some pretty stupid situations. As it turned out, the amount of trouble Dean could get himself into on his own, without his Dad’s watchful eye or his brother at his back, was pretty limitless. 

He’d learned that the hard way over the last year. 

But he always got out, which was what mattered. Even if he did do it by the skin of his teeth more often than not.

Dean wrapped some gauze around his side, slowly, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. He wasn’t doing a great job, but it would keep till he had the strength to do it better tomorrow. 

Tonight had been preventable. He’d gone in a tiny bit too drunk to safely do the job alone, which was such a dumb thing to do. He knew better. 

He’d just been pretty solidly drunk since about the time he’d realized he’d better get used to being on the road, on his own. About the time he’d started putting his bag in what he’d come to think of as Sammy’s seat. About the time he’d realized he wasn’t doing himself any favors thinking about it like that. He just hadn’t completely noticed he’d tipped over onto the wrong side of the line he’d been so carefully navigating. 

Maybe he hadn’t completely cared. 

But it wouldn’t happen again. Dean always tried to learn from his mistakes. 

He kicked off his second-best pair of jeans, which were already going stiff with drying blood, maybe ruined. He desperately needed a shower, but that would have to wait, too. 

The drinking, the rushing unprepared into danger, it was all part of Dean’s self-destructive streak. He’d always had one, but Sammy’s presence used to helped mitigate it. Now no one was around to tell him to eat some vegetables or get some sleep or to slow down and think about it for a minute, and so Dean was barely doing any of those things anymore.

So he’d been stupid, and he was paying the price. But ultimately he was going to be fine. Stiff and sore and staring down the barrel of a couple different kinds of agony tomorrow and he’d probably need to live off water from the sink and whatever power bars he had at the bottom of his duffle for a day or two--at least until he had more faith he wouldn’t pass out behind the wheel or had figured out what to do about the scent of his blood hanging so heavily in the motel room air—but he’d be fine. 

Slowly, he got into bed and rested against the headboard, careful not to pull anything

He’d done good on his own, really. Gotten himself stitched up, in bed, knife under his pillow. Painkillers, water, Tylenol, cell phone in reach. He’d been laid up in motel rooms dozens of times. Alone was barely even different. 

Not that there was anyone to call. No one close enough—last he’d heard Dad was working something across the country. Even if Dean called now, it would take his Dad three days to get here, and by then Dean really would be fine and they’d both be embarrassed about it. 

Sam was close enough. California was just a couple hours—Dean took just about every job he could find just a couple hours from Sam. But Sam was off limits. Sam said he was out and Dean was okay with that, he’d made his peace with it. 

And Dean was fine, anyway. 

He was twenty-four. He could take care of himself. 

Dean had taken a lot of painkillers. Any minute now they’d kick in and he’d go out, sleep till late tomorrow, hopefully. His head ached. 

Everything did. 

He pulled the cellphone into his lap. 

Flipped it open. Closed.

It wasn’t even that he wanted Sam to come—well, he did, he always wanted Sam in the shotgun seat—but mostly he just wanted to remind himself that there was someone in the world that truly cared that Dean was going to be okay. 

He almost never called Sam. Hadn’t in months. Sam called him occasionally—always drunk, which Dean tried not to read into. Dean was basically always drunk, too. And he needed to picture Sam happy in college, it was the only way this thing worked for Dean. 

Open. 

If he could stick it out a few minutes he’d be knocked out and tomorrow he wouldn’t even let himself toy with this thought.

Closed.

Open.

But he wasn’t going to say anything. Wasn’t going to do something pathetic like beg Sam to come take care of him, wasn’t even going to tell him what happened tonight. Because Dean was fine. 

Closed. 

He could tell Sam about the waitress he’d had a while back that looked just like Sam’s fourth grade teacher, or about how he’d completely cleaned up the last time he’d been in Las Vegas. Something light, quick. Then Dean could pass out and no lasting damage would be done to either of them.

Open. He was going to hate himself for this tomorrow.

Which was just another thing to add to the list, he supposed.

He dialed.

He just wanted two minutes: a reminder that Sam was alive, wanted to remind Sam his brother was, too.

It rang. 

And rang. 

The other two or three times Dean had called, Sam had always picked up immediately. It was something their Dad had trained into them: _you can, you pick up the phone for family._

[Somewhere three-hundred miles away, Sam sat stunned, textbook forgotten, watching his phone buzz, trying not to feel it like a knife, talking himself out of answering. He’d promised himself he’d let Dean go. He took the phone’s battery out, threw it towards the mess under his bed, and tried to convince himself he’d done the right thing.]

Sam’s utilitarian voicemail greeting picked up. 

_It’s Sam. Leave me a message._

Dean hung up. 

It didn’t matter.

He was fine.


End file.
